Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE BASIC ISSUES
- PART TWO DIMENSIONS OF TESTING
- PART THREE APPLICATIONS OF TESTING
- 9 Special Children
- 10 Older Persons
- 11 Testing in a Cross-Cultural Context
- 12 Disability and Rehabilitation
- PART FOUR THE SETTINGS
- PART FIVE CHALLENGES TO TESTING
- Appendix: Table to Translate Difficulty Level of a Test Item into a z Score
- References
- Test Index
- Index of Acronyms
- Subject Index
- References
12 - Disability and Rehabilitation
from PART THREE - APPLICATIONS OF TESTING
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART ONE BASIC ISSUES
- PART TWO DIMENSIONS OF TESTING
- PART THREE APPLICATIONS OF TESTING
- 9 Special Children
- 10 Older Persons
- 11 Testing in a Cross-Cultural Context
- 12 Disability and Rehabilitation
- PART FOUR THE SETTINGS
- PART FIVE CHALLENGES TO TESTING
- Appendix: Table to Translate Difficulty Level of a Test Item into a z Score
- References
- Test Index
- Index of Acronyms
- Subject Index
- References
Summary
AIM This chapter looks at testing in the context of disability and rehabilitation. Although we talk about the entire life span, the focus is on adults, as opposed to Chapter 9 where the focus was explicitly on children. We look at three major categories of disability: visual impairment, hearing impairment, and physical impairment. For each category, we look at some of the basic principles and some specific examples as illustrations of these principles.
SOME GENERAL CONCERNS
Who are the disabled? The International Center for the Disabled undertook three national surveys between 1986 and 1989 to obtain some fundamental information. They reported that in the United States there are some 27 million individuals, aged 16 and older, who are disabled. Approximately 66% are not working, but two thirds of these say they would like a job. Among the major barriers to employment were lack of marketable skills, lack of accessible or affordable transportation, and feelings that employers do not recognize the fact that they are capable of doing full-time jobs. As a matter of fact, a subsequent survey of employers and managers indicated that disabled employees typically received good or excellent job ratings.
Categories of disability. The four major categories of disabilities – vision impairment, hearing impairment, physical or motor disabilities, and learning disabilities – account for the majority of occasions where the application of standard tests presents a challenge, both from a psychometric and a clinical perspective. We take a look at the first three of these categories.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Psychological TestingAn Introduction, pp. 297 - 324Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006